Today would have been my parents 68th wedding anniversary! My dad came out of the army in 1946, having served his country for seven years. He worked at the Low Temperature Research Station in Cambridge, as an analyst. Also working there was a young girl who he had noticed at the weekly dances held in the Rex Ballroom. He had told his cousin John that she was the girl he was going to marry, and he asked her out… That girl was my mum, Monica. She was working as a clerk at the lab; she said she would be busy working when suddenly a bunch of violets would land on her desk and she’d look up and there would be Donald, grinning from the doorway.

They married on a Monday because that was the only day Donald’s parents could have away from the pub they ran, the Portland Arms. They were married in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, commonly called the Round Church, in Cambridge, and had their reception at the Dorothy Café. They went for a honeymoon to Eastbourne, a resort on the south coast.